Grenfell Tower

[jayne lee wilson]

Where were safety regulations? Decimated in the interests of "cutting red tape."
Where is the accountability for something like this? Transferred by privatisation from elected officials to a company managing estates for profit.
Where were the inspections? Cut by cost-saving austerity measures.
Why was the cheap inflammable cladding added to the building? So that rich local residents didn't have the inconvenience of inequality staring them in the face.
In the hopefully better future this event will be seen as pivotal. It's the inevitable result of so many dishonest and divisive strands of government policy in recent decades. In the end people don't want to live in a society where something like this can happen. The UK is still one of the wealthiest countries in the world and there is no excuse whatsoever for such a disaster. Some will object to a "political" post on this thread. Well, sorry, allowing poor people to be incinerated is political.

Thankyou for this - agreed in every devastating respect...

[Lat-Literal]

In a less multicultural era, teenagers in not so contented independent schools knew how to cope with the worries - and sadness - of seeing octogenarian relatives forced into tower blocks. We latched onto an intelligent and artistic working class culture which combined a critical outlook of such homes with some positive elements of being linked to "the cool".

I had a fear of being trapped in confined spaces. The cultural day-to-day essentially but symbolically represented by the lift every other Sunday in a very different place. It could not be relied on to work, especially when the youths had urinated in there. A statement perhaps on the rubbish that was piling up because of all the constant walk-outs while folk there still, of course, had to use the chute. I also had some fear of heights. The balcony was supposedly out-of-bounds as the authorities advised it could crumble any second. Somehow, though, I felt obliged to walk onto it on each visit. Could I manage the sense of drop which seemed so much more acute in the stomach when one became aware of the sheer wall above it against which seven more floors were built? In the short distance were football players in cages enjoying urban freedom. In the far distance, it was St Paul's.

I didn't mind that the wealthy parents of my best friend - very kind to me - were remote from it all even if I could never feel wholly incorporated while going with them often on holidays. But the tower block itself was my main symbol against parents of those in the school who were similar to them, that is, worldly wise in terms of power but in personality much less cute. Yet we know who put our people there. It wasn't them and Bryn is right. There is no colour in anything that can be said of what has happened. Except users will use to their own ends and all of them are typified by their ambition. Stability, security, community, justice....these things are only exercised by people rallying on behalf of people. And it is cool heads, albeit in a different sense to the way in which I would have understood such things, that are now required to get to the truths of this tragedy on behalf of us all.

[P. G. Tipps]

Your post may be 'political' but not party-political. The political responsibility for lack of rigour in fire safety stretches back through several national administrations of all three principal UK-mainland-wide parties.

That might indeed be true. And, if so then, logically, UK voters themselves presumably must share at least some of the 'blame' even if those voters include P. G. Tipps and, yes, even R. Barrett and millions of others ?

This is no time for all this wretched 'holier than thou' political point-scoring.

[Richard Barrett]

This is no time for all this wretched 'holier than thou' political point-scoring.

I see no point-scoring, only disgust with the sort of attitudes on show here:

http://metro.co.uk/2017/06/16/government-ministers-congratulated-themselves-for-cutting-fire-regulations-6713967/

[teamsaint]

If the wreck of lives and building at Grenfell , in stark comparison to the chrome and glass high rise palaces that are springing up all over London for the rich and the super rich doesn't bring the country to it's senses, then nothing will.

[P. G. Tipps]

I see no point-scoring, only disgust with the sort of attitudes on show here:

http://metro.co.uk/2017/06/16/govern...tions-6713967/

Personally, I see nothing other than political point-scoring there ... and share your disgust.

[Richard Barrett]

Personally, I see nothing other than political point-scoring there

Where exactly?

[P. G. Tipps]

Where exactly?

Where is the link you yourself provided ..?

It's maybe best I depart this thread now.

My only thoughts right now are with the victims and their families, all those marvellous volunteers, and the undoubted trauma which must also have been suffered by so many in the emergency services.

'Nuff said ...

[Richard Barrett]

Where is the link you yourself provided ..?

You don't seem to be able to see the difference between, on the one hand, "point-scoring", and, on the other, an attempt to trace the root causes of a disaster like this so that things can be done differently and it doesn't happen somewhere else tomorrow. I imagine you aren't under the misapprehension that Grenfell Tower is the only building in the country where something like this can take place. No doubt there are dozens of others, the result of systemic mismanagement, profiteering and criminal neglect. Drawing attention to this is not "point-scoring", it arises from the same compassion for possible future victims of such catastrophes as anyone with an ounce of humanity is feeling for the victims of this one. This occurrence doesn't in any way reduce the probability of a repeat tomorrow, or the next day... unless something is learned from it quickly and the appropriate steps taken, and those steps clearly need to be taken at a high level.

[Anastasius]

Where were safety regulations? Decimated in the interests of "cutting red tape."
Where is the accountability for something like this? Transferred by privatisation from elected officials to a company managing estates for profit.
Where were the inspections? Cut by cost-saving austerity measures.
Why was the cheap inflammable cladding added to the building? So that rich local residents didn't have the inconvenience of inequality staring them in the face.
In the hopefully better future this event will be seen as pivotal. It's the inevitable result of so many dishonest and divisive strands of government policy in recent decades. In the end people don't want to live in a society where something like this can happen. The UK is still one of the wealthiest countries in the world and there is no excuse whatsoever for such a disaster. Some will object to a "political" post on this thread. Well, sorry, allowing poor people to be incinerated is political.

Here we go again. Another leftie rant shouting 'Unfair..unfair'. What an emotive load of codswallop. Are you an expert in fire prevention? No, thought not. So less of the rabid ranting, eh?

And the article regarding cutting the time it takes to do fire inspections? Aren't we just being a tad disingenuous and confusing correlation with causation?

No, any loss of life is sad but jumping on the leftie band wagon and beating the same old weary ...nasty bankers, boo hoo.. sorry, cuts no ice. What I DO find offensive is Corbynge milking it for all its worth. That and his 'Rent-a-Mob' supporters hi-jacking a peaceful demonstration along with Radical Housing.

[Anastasius]

Excellent post, Lat.

[Pulcinella]

Here we go again. Another leftie rant shouting 'Unfair..unfair'. What an emotive load of codswallop. Are you an expert in fire prevention? No, thought not. So less of the rabid ranting, eh?

And the article regarding cutting the time it takes to do fire inspections? Aren't we just being a tad disingenuous and confusing correlation with causation?

No, any loss of life is sad but jumping on the leftie band wagon and beating the same old weary ...nasty bankers, boo hoo.. sorry, cuts no ice. What I DO find offensive is Corbynge milking it for all its worth. That and his 'Rent-a-Mob' supporters hi-jacking a peaceful demonstration along with Radical Housing.

Could you please explain why this is a leftie rant?
As far as I can see (and as another comment has said), this is a political, not party-political, posting.
Your reaction is one that I find objectionable and offensive, but sadly all too typical of a certain mindset that is plaguing the country at present.

[Cockney Sparrow]

I wonder when, approximately, some posters here suggest we mark our diaries to retrieve these issues from the long grass? How long an interval for the parties involved, the squads of lawyers to take issue with every point, insist on rights of reply in every draft report etc - all the years the public enquiry will take, whilst 2nd class citizens continue to live in dangerous and substandard accommodation.

Unfortunately it doesn't assist the cause of the right or the centre right when questions are asked about, for example, the dismantling of regulation - including lack of review of building standards, localism (=loading off government responsibility to hapless and cash strapped local authorities) local authority privatisations or dumping responsibility on "not for profit" intermediaries; and generally the neglect of promotion of a framework for decent living standards. Once the questions start, it quickly leads to numerous uncomfortable places and I can quite see it suits those with responsibility, and their sympathisers, to suggest we just keep our minds on the grievous losses, and the needs of the living left behind.

[Richard Barrett]

Here we go again. Another leftie rant shouting 'Unfair..unfair'. What an emotive load of codswallop. Are you an expert in fire prevention? No, thought not. So less of the rabid ranting, eh?

And the article regarding cutting the time it takes to do fire inspections? Aren't we just being a tad disingenuous and confusing correlation with causation?

No, any loss of life is sad but jumping on the leftie band wagon and beating the same old weary ...nasty bankers, boo hoo.. sorry, cuts no ice. What I DO find offensive is Corbynge milking it for all its worth. That and his 'Rent-a-Mob' supporters hi-jacking a peaceful demonstration along with Radical Housing.

I wonder whether your post or mine would generally be regarded as more deserving of the description "rant".

[Bryn]

More leftie ranting. This time from that bastion of left-wing propaganda, The Daily Telegraph.

This report on a very much less catastrophic fire in Melbourne in 2014 might through some light on the subject. Oh, and I am no expert on fire prevention either, though I did work as a Research Assistant for the then Heating and Ventilation Research Association in earlier years, and did have to study and implement fire prevention protocols in the construction of test facilities for oil fired heating systems. The scientists at CSIRO who wrote the appendix on Grenfell Tower type cladding in the report linked to, do know their onions.